[KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980

[Roald Maliangkay]

Dear Werner,

Good to read you! I hope you¹re enjoying the end of the long cold winter
there. I hear it was a particularly mean one.

Anyway, I am probably misreading something here, but it seems you¹re saying
Scott is lying about being assaulted by a group of people, and I find that a
bit hard to take in. I don¹t think he was referring to the entire movement
as a mob. Korean protests in the past few decades have shown us that wanton
violence does occur. I remember one entire floor at the Lotte Department
floor being levelled after the protesters, who started their protests only a
week or so earlier, were told their demands would not be met. It¹s a common
phenomenon this unorganised, uncharacteristic mob violence, as I am sure you
know (also coming from a footballing nation). I think it¹s important to
really consider all the elements (of frustration), and that does mean taking
into account the entirety of the movements we study and discuss and not
ignore the little group acts of violent indiscretion simply because they do
not fit the big picture. Those splinter groups are interesting as well, but
their aims may only be loosely connected to the aspirations of the main
group. If I were assaulted by a group of people I probably wouldn¹t use a
three-letter word, to be honest. However, that is not to say, of course,
that we must regard all of the protesters as a mob, because I would strongly
reject that. 

Just my two cents worth...

Best wishes,

Roald



Op 18/02/11 7:19 PM, Werner Sasse <werner_sasse at hotmail.com> schreef:

> Scott, can you, please, stop this!
> Your comments are simply disgusting in the way they picture these people.
> I lived within the cordon the riot police had drawn all the time during these
> demonstrations, and I was unfortunate to see the aggressive behaviour of the
> riot police once darkness had fallen.  And really, the sheer mass of the
> police in their war like outfits was a provocation in itself already. It
> definitely reminded of late Park Chung Hee's times.
> The demonstrators were students, middle class mothers with their babes, and
> men of all ages in dark suits right out of their offices. Their behavior was
> agitated, showing how upset they were (and not about the Mad cow thing that
> triggered the demonstrations, but about the way the government behaved), but
> certainly not  "disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence".
> You may  not have liked the demonstrations. That's o.k. But, please, do not
> use this kind of language.
> Werner Sasse 
>  
>  
>> > Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:55:30 -0800
>> > From: jsburgeson at yahoo.com
>> > To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>> > Subject: Re: [KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980
>> > 
>> > --- On Wed, 2/16/11, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws> wrote:
>> > 
>>> > > The term "mob" has a specifically negative and outdated taste
>>> > > to it ... being a term for mafia as well as being mafia slang
>>> > > itself on the one hand, and in its older British usage, I
>>> > > think, reflects a rather elitist view, but was then also
>>> > > picked up by late 19th and early 20th century communists to
>>> > > refer to masses in a negative way, masses that are being
>>> > > manipulated, dehumanized -- non-legitimized masses so to
>>> > > say. That is at least my understanding. You used it in that
>>> > > same way, as I read it, and it was irritating to see that in
>>> > > your report dealing with Korean protests against U.S.
>>> > > imports etc.
>> > 
>> > I can't speak to earlier protest movements in South Korea, but certainly
>> there were moments during the Mad Cow Protests of 2008 in Seoul when the
>> supposedly peaceful "vigils" degenerated into outright mob-like behavior.
>> Whether the widespread, unprovoked violence displayed by many protesters on
>> many nights was calculated (to provoke reactions from the riot police, and
>> thereby generate propaganda imagery in support of the movement) or
>> "spontaneous" is moot, since to outside observers, the impression was the
>> same, and in line with the following dictionary definition:
>> > 
>> > mob |mäb|
>> > noun
>> > a large crowd of people, esp. one that is disorderly and intent on causing
>> trouble or violence : a mob of protesters.
>> > 
>> > The pattern of reckless violence and provocation continued well into 2009,
>> such as when protesters "celebrating" the one-year anniversary of the Mad Cow
>> Protests stormed the Hi! Seoul Festival performance stage at Seoul Plaza,
>> forcing its cancellation, and continuing to run amok in Myong-dong on many
>> other nights. I was there on most nights and witnessed all of this first-hand
>> myself, and on one occasion when attempting to photograph some of the more
>> egregious transgressions of the protesters, was physically assaulted by no
>> less than half a dozen different protesters at once.
>> > 
>> > Surely it is the task of historians to view and write history with eyes
>> wide open, rather than willfully whitewashing it (whether with fancy verbiage
>> and semantics or otherwise), given that the evidence is easily accessible to
>> anyone looking for it?
>> > 
>> > --Scott Bug
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>        

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